Getting There: Example of Successfully
Obtaining SaTC CAREER Award
Dr. Oleg Komogortsev
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
Texas State University
Technological Example
< Video clip from Minority Report (2002) omitted>
Motivation cont’d
Biometrics: provide easier and more
secure access control than traditional
passwords
 Challenges: spoofing

< Video clip from Charlie’s
Angels (2000) omitted>
Ocular Biometrics Idea
Ocular Biometrics Idea cont’d
Oculomotor Plant
Brain
Ocular
Biometrics
Iris
Broader Impact
More accurate than iris
 Spoof resistant

Broader Impact cont’d

Scientific
Detection of physiological and psychological
states
 Metrics and tools to study how different we
are


Societal impacts

UDAI project in India that affects 1.2B
people
The Beginning
Agonist
Antagonist
N LR
NMR
0°+

FMR
BANT LT _ MR
KSE(θ SE_MR + ∆θ SE_MR )
θ LT_MR +∆θ LT_MR
θ MR + ∆θ
θ SE_MR +∆θ SE_MR
B p 
Kp∆θ
BAG LT _ LR
KSE(θ SE_LR + ∆θ SE_LR )
TMR
KLT(θ LT_MR+ ∆θ LT_MR )
FLR
TLR
KLT(θ LT_LR - ∆θ LT_LR )
θ SE_LR +∆θ SE_LR
θ LT_LR -∆θ LT_LR
θ LR - ∆θ
First Attempt: Research Ideas
Create more accurate Oculomotor Plan
model
 Explore novel Human Computer
Interaction techniques
 Identifying a person based on the
internal structure of human eye

First Attempt: Challenges

Getting preliminary results
First Attempt: Finding an
Appropriate Program

Contacting Program Directors
E-mails
 Personal meetings


Advice
Be persistent
 Get feedback, no matter how hard it is.

First Attempt: Getting Help
Ask for successful proposals
 Ask people to review and provide
feedback

First Attempt: Official Review

Too many aims


Each of the goal has to be defended against
domain-specific criticism
Broader impact is unclear

The proposal should be easily defendable
by the community from the broader impact
standpoint
Insufficient preliminary results
 Biometrics component is interesting!

Second Attempt: Challenge of Going
Forward
Publishing preliminary results
 Convincing biometrics community that
eye movement-driven biometrics makes
sense

Second Attempt: Plan
Talk to NSF program director
 Concentrate on one area – biometrics
 Use language and concepts that would
be understood by the reviewers in the
community
 Provide coherent structure
 Outline clear goals and outcomes

Second Attempt: Official Review
Unclear how ocular biometrics is better
than existing methods, such as iris scan
 How proposal meets goals of SaTC
program?

Third Attempt: Plan



Clearly explain advantages of Ocular
Biometrics
“provide the basis for designing, building,
and operating a cyberinfrastructure with
improved resistance and resilience to
attack… ”.
Extra step



Co-organizing eye movement biometrics
competition
contributing to a NIST liveness standard
contributing to larger project such as UDAI
Third Attempt: Result

Award!
Summary
Idea that will result in significant broader
impacts
 Scope of work manageable and
defendable
 Submission to the correct program
 Clear structure, goals, and outcomes
 Start working early

Thank you
NSF
 SaTC program
